reports the article cites - the Business Outlook survey.
The article uses the report to support the idea that businesses are not citing the ACA as a reason for shifting to part-time labor or using other methods to avoid paying for health care - and indeed it appears that the majority of the fewer than 100 companies surveyed do not see the ACA as a reason to change their practices.
The percentages that the article cites are a little misleading, however. They say:
Of about 75 manufacturers surveyed by the Philadelphia Fed, 5.6 percent said they have shifted from full-time to more part-time workers to avoid health-care rules and 2.8 percent have refrained from hiring or fired workers, based on results released July 18. Over the next year, 8.3 percent plan to have more part-time workers and 5.6 percent plan to fire or refrain from hiring workers because of the law.
True - that's what the percentages say - but what they omitted was:
9.7% of those surveyed had fewer than 50 employees
Of the remaining firms, 13.9% indicated they would drop or cut back on health insurance for their employees
Currently:
70.8% report they have made minimal or no change in response to the ACA
11.1% have started outsourcing more work
9.7% have started doing "other" (as opposed to not changing anything in response to the ACA)
8.3% declined to respond - which given the options of "little or nothing" and "other" suggests nothing good . . .
In the next year:
54.2% plan on making minimal or no change
18.1% plan on outsourcing more work
12.5% plan on doing "other"
9.7% declined to respond
Those figures sort of take the happy glow off the low percentage of companies who have shifted or plan to shift to part-time labor.
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